


Hands to Heal, Not Harm

by missdarkandtwisty



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Drugs, Fluff, Hospitals, Multi, Natasha Feels, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Avengers, Protective Clint, Steve Feels, Suicide Attempt, Team, Team Bonding, Team Feels, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Trust, Trust Issues, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2017-12-30 18:43:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missdarkandtwisty/pseuds/missdarkandtwisty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which all of the Avengers have issues with being touched.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tony Stark

Tony realises that yes, all his issues with human contact mainly stem from Afghanistan where the Ten Rings were no strangers to being handsy when they came to torture. It also seems that since he’s become an Avenger and an overall not-that-bad-a-guy and stopped selling weapons, every terrorist group/kidnapper on the planet seem to have an on-going bet as to how many different ways they can torture him. 5,000 bucks if you catch him, 75,000 if you can get him to pass out, 100,000 if you can make him beg and leave him with some more band-aid covered triggers and some nice memories to PTSD about.

 

Another example is when he loses consciousness in the suit, it happens rarely but still happens and his team-mates usually have to pry open his armour, rip apart his metal cocoon to check he’s still breathing. If he’s lucky he’ll stay pass out till they get him to medical or Bruce declares it’s safe to move him but there are times he wakes up and he can feel palms over him, holding his shoulders down and pulling off his chest plate and fuck, it feels like the Hulk is sitting on his chest and his head’s spinning and why the fuck can he not breathe? Flashbacks of the worm hole and calling Pepper and being freezing cold meld with being held under water and grubby hands grabbing him and forcing him to do things and the sparks from that fucking car battery in his chest and then suddenly there isn’t any strange people touching him and he’s lying in a pile of rubble while the rest of the Avengers surround him but not close enough to crowd him.

Surprisingly, it was Natasha who got them to back off but then again she is an expert in reading and manipulating people so go figure but he’s still grateful for it. He’s breathing heavily as the adrenaline works its way out of his system, realising there is no reason for the fight or flight reaction at this moment but his pupils are blown huge and dark with fear as he cautiously sits up with the help of Bruce who keeps his touch limited to what is absolutely needed. They help carry him back to the Quin jet but they avoid getting too close to him and valiantly ignore that their ever-confident genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist almost had a complete meltdown in front of them.

 

The team steadily ignore the whole panic attack thing but it’s like they’re treading on eggshells around him and just waiting for the bomb to explode but after a couple of weeks they seem to relax a bit as the expected explosion doesn’t come so they kind of go back to how they were. Except when they are happy and getting along swimmingly (well as swimmingly as it can get when two master assassins, a super-human, a demi-god, a guy with some pretty big anger management problems and Iron Man all living under one roof) when his panic attack happens which is a bit of an oxymoron if he ever knew one and fucking awful.

He’d passed out on the bar stool in the kitchen and was not half asleep and drooling into his hand, exhausted after a 70 hour strictly no sleep period spent upgrading his suit, tweaking JARVIS and just generally enjoying tinkering with his new car down in the workshop (well, what he would considered tinkering. Most people would refer to it as ‘completely disassembling the latest super car, what the hell?!’) Steve had materialised, scrounging for food after a night of diminishing the tower’s supply of punching bags and going for an early morning run all before the sun had actually risen. Steve had strode in whistling and rested his hand on Tony’s shoulder and saying good morning before starting to snark about something but the genius had jerked awake instantly and then was on the other side of the bar, hand painfully clenching his shirt where is arc reactor lay beneath. Face pale and sweaty beneath his tan, eyes wide and black and scared, all of these Steve instantly took into account.

“Tony?” he says warily, holding his hands out in front of himself and trying to seem smaller and less threatening which is hard when you’re a 6 foot plus chemically enhanced human.

The dark-haired man just holds a finger up, head bent down and still clutching his chest with his breath wheezing, “Just-just give me a moment, ‘kay?”

Steve just nods wordlessly and shuffles awkwardly, not quite knowing what course of action to take next. Then getting a bit more of a grasp on the situation, quickly grabs a cold wet cloth and a glass of water before rounding the corner of the bar slowly with plenty of noise a warning. Tony’s crouched down on his heels now but his knuckles are still white and damp along with his face.

“Hey Tony,” he says softly, trying to rid the panic that’s flooding his own system at seeing his friend like this “Is there anything you need? Anyone? Do I need to get you to hospital?”

“No” the billionaire quickly rasps, voice rough and grating, “No hospitals.” The thought of being left in a cold white box ups his panic even more.

“Okay, okay,” Steve quickly soothes, “No hospitals, I understand. We’ll just sit here for a bit and when you’re feeling up to it you can have some water, alright? I’ve got a wash cloth here too, you know, to cool you down?”

Tony nods weakly and feels something other than blind hysteria in his chest, a kind of appreciation towards Steve for putting up with his shit, for not cringing and running away but helping him. No one ever helps him aside from Pepper, Happy and Rhodey. The only people in the world he trusted implicitly but now there was definitely a little more trust towards his team who ground him and keep him stable.

“Breathe Tony,” Steve says quietly, sounding like he’s speaking to a spooked horse, “You’re doing great, just ride it out.”

A few minutes or perhaps years have passed and it’s like an eternity before Tony’s posture seems to relax but barely, only his knuckled fists unclenching slightly and shoulders beginning to slump but his breathing sounds struggled at best and a little voice in the back of Steve’s head reminds him that Tony does suffer from chest problems, who wouldn’t after having shrapnel embedded in their heart and having completely untested technology plugging the wound, and any strain a normal person would have must be amplified ten times over.

“Y’know for a guy out of his time you’re pretty good at dealing with this,” Tony wheezes, head buried between his jean-clad knees.

“I don’t know what it’s called now but a lot of guys in my squad had battle exhaustion pretty bad, used to call it shellshock before that I think. Load of them used to wake up screaming in the barracks in their sleep and if you tried to wake them they’d think you were attacking them. We kept it quiet, you know? Anything to stop them from getting sent to the nut house I guess.”

Steve always speaks with an unhidden longing for his life back then but it’s times like this when he tells horror stories of the war that make Tony infinitely grateful he spent 70 years as a popsicle because what if he’d stayed then? Would he have become some high ranked officer in ‘Nam? Most likely because Steve was like that, the self-sacrificing son of a bitch, and would probably be a whole lot more broken now if he’d seen the way the soldiers who had fought through jungles and guerrilla tactics and the terror of being attacked at any given moment, who had survived and made it back to the fabled ‘land of the free’ only to be tossed aside like rubbish.

“Same thing,” Tony manages gruffly as his chest muscles finally; finally begin to expand, “Just a fancier name. Called PTSD now, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Brain thing, you probably have it too, Cap.”

“Most likely,” Steve murmured, thinking of the way his body instantly froze at the thought of ice and explosives. “Think you can manage some water?”

Tony nods eagerly and almost guzzles the whole content of the cup in a matter of seconds before blowing out a shallow breath of air. Steve hands him the wash-cloth but is careful about the skin to skin contact, wary of setting Tony off again.

After swiping down his sweaty face with shaking hands Tony tries to explain, “It’s not - I don’t mind touch usually it’s just the whole shoulder thing.”  
Steve frowns.

“I, my dad’s right hand guy, Obadiah Stane, he really pulled a number on me a while back. Ordered a hit on me in Afghanistan, ended up with this,” he taps the glowing surface of the arc reactor through his shirt, “But alive. Obie wasn’t happy with that and he wanted the reactor but nobody else was able to recreate it, obviously not I am a genius after all, so he decided to take it from me himself.”

Steve finds himself suddenly furious towards a man he never knew, well, if what he is imagining is coming next in Tony’s story.

“He drugged me, I wasn’t out of it I just couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. And I just remember-” the quick-witted brunet pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut tightly before continuing hesitantly, quietly, and a lot broken, “I kept thinking that I was safe, I was in my own home and he could still hurt me and he’d had his hand on my shoulder pretty much my entire life and it was so familiar except he was ripping out the thing that was keeping me alive.”

“It’s not really a combat issue but it sometimes happens if I’m in a place I think that I’m-”

“Safe.” Steve says flatly through gritted teeth and he has to concentrate on his breathing, perhaps joining Bruce a couple of times on his regular meditation sessions would help.

“Look I understand that it’s stupid and I wasn’t in a war or anything, hell it was only one guy and a couple of months in a cave and then the whole I’m-the-guy-who-cuts-the-wire thing but you don’t have to sound like that about it.” Voice full of hurt and defence and Tony can feel the invisible hackles rising on the back of his neck.

“No Tony! That’s not what I meant,” the blonde haired leader says, “I meant that it’s even worse for you. We all signed up for the war, we knew the consequences. You were in your home, he violated that.” He let out a world-weary kind of laughing sigh, “Please tell me these people are dead.”

“What?”

“Tony I’m trying very hard not to go and tell two of the most dangerous assassins in the world who just happen to live with us their names and ordering a hit on them.”

“Aw Cap, I knew you appreciated my eccentric ways.”

“Tony?”

“Mostly, that alright for you Spangles?”

“It’s good enough.”


	2. Natasha Romanoff

The nurses and some of the doctors were all huddled over at the reception desk, all pretending to be discreet and failing badly. It wasn’t as if the Avengers weren’t frequent visitors to SHIELD’s medical floor but it was definitely one of the worst.

For starters, Thor and Steve were huge. The two blonde super heroes completely dwarfed the blue plastic chairs in the waiting area, both looking extremely woebegone. The Norse demigod who was usually injury free was sporting a large forehead laceration and a slightly bloody nose. He was completely quiet, rare for the energetic guy who seemed to remind most people of a large, excitable Labrador, and was clenching and unclenching his scraped fists around Mjölnir. Unhappily tense and heavy muscles thrumming with an uncomfortable energy but he just refused to move. Instead opting to obediently stare at the blank lifeless hospital walls while twirling his faithful hammer with a heavy heart.

Steve, as big as he was, took up decidedly less space. Maybe because before the serum he was so small he had to be used to taking up a lot less room than he did now and it was distinctly noticeable in his posture. Shoulders hunched inwards, head down, legs tucked closely beneath his chair with his trusted shield between his thighs. The patriotic figure was covered in soot, presumably from a blast of some sort – thinking about it, Thor’s cape did look a little charred - and even though his American suit was equipped with a Kevlar meant his iconic mask was. The skin over his cheeks and nose remained clearer than the rest of his dust-tinged face.

Tony and Bruce came next, the science bros and only avengers on ‘team brunet’ according to Tony, looked considerably worse than their godly and super human counterparts. Stark seemed perfectly content to walk around in his armour, the face plate had been removed but Stark looked antsy and nervous. A strange combination on the renowned billionaire but there it was, plain as day. He couldn’t seem to sit still, changing positions every few minutes, knee bouncing, jittering and twiddling is thumbs at one point. He only relaxed a bit when his CEO, the famous Pepper Potts, arrived, formidable as ever but with washed-away tear tracks still visible on her face. He leapt from his chair and hugged her tightly, pressing his nose into her hair while she just made shushing noises and grasped his armour-plated shoulders before holding him at arm’s length and apparently examining the damage the genius had managed to cause himself on their last crazy mission before kissing him softly and pressing her head against his chest quietly while Tony spoke.  
The curious onlookers looked away briefly, the general public might not know but they all knew how much Pepper was to Tony. Whenever Tony required actual medical treatment (i.e. multiple stitches) the normal procedure was to knock him out cold, which he hated and grouched and threatened to sue them within an inch of their lives when he woke up, or wait for Ms Potts to turn up and she would sit calmly with him. She wouldn’t let him watch as the nurses carefully sewed his damage skin back together, just made sure he kept watching her, squeezing his hand to keep him calm too. Otherwise, they could never get within five feet of Tony Stark with hospital equipment of any sort.

The good doctor had nervous tics. When it was a particularly bad or stressful situation he usually ended up clamming up completely, his hands holding his knees to his chest while his chin rested on top, eyes carefully assessing threats but never holding direct eye contact. He ducked his head a lot too, his soft voice out of place considering the fierceness and unaltered rage of his alter ego. Bruce wasn’t nearly as skittish as Stark was around medical supplies but he was wary of the personnel, most of the time deciding to take care of his own wounds. Now, as they watched on, Banner was sitting up in that curled up way, his skinny spine pressing into the back of the hard chair as he fiddled with his half dismantled glasses, glancing at the clock intermittently.

Barton was undoubtedly the worst. SHIELD doctors had had to deal with him for years and how he had not caused permanent damage to himself was frankly a miracle. The archer had a worrying and plainly disturbing habit of jumping off of high rise buildings, with or without a grappling hook and generally getting himself into the worst situation imaginable. He was pacing, limping really, up and down the corridor. Piercing grey eyes, of which he had received the nickname ‘Hawkeye’ for, were dull and heavy. His arms were straight by his sides but his fists clenched and occasionally ran through his dirty blonde spikes.

He was strange like this. Coulson was usually here to placate him but with the familiar and comforting person of his handler killed in action the sniper was definitely twitchier. Hawkeye was notoriously intimidating, despite his short and almost scrawny stature, a childhood of abuse and malnutrition was to thank for that. His time spent in the army special ops had muscled him up but not by much. When Phil had first dragged the young barely legal Clint Barton into HQ for the first time he had been half dead on his feet with starvation and dehydration. Barton had been smart-mouthed (not much had changed) but wary and hyper sensitive to his surroundings. When he’d got his first meagre meal of vegetable soup and dry bread he had snatched the bowl away, guarding his food with those flint eyes watching over all the agents present. It had kind of broken some of their hearts that the guy was convinced someone was going to steal his meal, especially when he was so obviously deprived of it.

 

Fury’s merry band of superheroes remained the same way for hours, that was until a surgeon had appeared from the OR with a grim expression. All of them tensed immediately. She headed straight for Clint.

“Agent Barton, you’re here for Romanoff?”

“We all are,” Tony interrupted, materialising at Clint’s side, along with the other Avengers plus Pepper, “How is she?”

“She’s doing as well as can be expected,” a collective sigh could be heard, “We lost her a couple of times on the table and it didn’t help her enhancers churn through everything, including anaesthetics, but she pulled through. The aftermath was critical so we’ve been monitoring her but she should be waking up soon, you’re all welcome to sit with her.”

Or Doctor Grace would have said that if she hadn’t been cut off halfway through her last sentence when the blaring alarm went off at the nurse’s station. Chaos ensued, professionals running towards the patient, Barton taking off down the hallway, tailed by his team mates.

 

Clint only had one coherent thought in his mind and that was Tasha. Sprinting down the hallway he swung into the doorway as Steve collided with his back.

Natasha was screaming, she never screamed. An army of men in white coats were trying to pin her broken body to the bed and secure the restraints but she was yelling and struggling. One man grabbed her shoulder and she turned her head and sunk her perfect white teeth into the fleshy part of his arm.

It would have been funny if it wasn’t like a cornered animal’s last defence.

The man in question yelped before lunging for a sedative and Clint could hear himself roaring NO before they had her drugged and she was whimpering quietly, confused and disorientated and panicking as they tightened her handcuffs.

“You fucking idiots, did no one even bother to look at her file you morons?” Stark’s insults were background noise as Clint shuffled over to her bed and crouched beside it.

“Hey Tasha,” he said quietly, squeezing her cuffed hand softly and brushing her scarlet tresses out of her eyes, “How you doing?”

She frowned, and seemed to be torn between pulling away and leaning in towards his warm touch. She made a small noise before grunting and tossing her head about, the drugs were obviously a lot stronger than she was used to. They’d probably upped the dosage after seeing how fast she burned through everything else they had given her.

“It’s okay, I got you Nat. You’re safe, promise.” This was always the hard part, convincing Natasha that she wasn’t in danger, to let her walls down and relax so she could heal, although he couldn’t blame her for being like this. She’d had her brain picked apart and had been remade so many times it would be bizarre for her not to be so nervous. “’M gonna take off the cuffs now, ‘kay?” He continued narrating his actions as he carefully released her chafed wrists. As soon as she was free she rolled to the far side of the hospital bed and squinted at him accusingly.

“It’s alright, it’s only me, it’s Clint,” he said softly. He knew not to touch her when she was in this state. It would be like providing the catalyst to the explosion. He shrugged off his field jacket and tentatively held it out to her. At this point it could either go one of two ways; she could think he was attacking her and completely and flip out, he would end up having to pin her because he was the only one who could land a hit on the infamous Black Widow before the doctors shot her up with more drugs which would just make it worse in the long run.

She sniffed suspiciously. She had once told him that she didn’t trust half of her senses when she was like this. Sight and sound were completely disregarded, those parts of her mind were easy to manipulate, along with her memories. It was harder to recreate smell and touch and anything she could recognise this way grounded her. She snatched the jacket away, half lying and half sitting but still looking like she was ready to cause hell in order to escape.

Clint nodded reassuringly, giving her all the time she needed and carefully sitting on the edge of the hospital bed with his back to her and started unlacing his boots. This part was crucial too, the fact he was making himself vulnerable, and baring his back, helped give her control which was what she craved the most. She slowly brought his jacket to her nose, her movements jarred somewhat with the pain from her injuries, and breathed in the scent of sweat and blood and spices that were distinctly Clint. No one could synthesize this, not the rough texture of his worn jacket, not him. She felt a bit of herself return, certainty that wherever she was she had her partner and he would always watch her back, as she would his.

She buried her face deeper into his coat and finally let the tension ease out of her body and curled up on her side, still clutching the garment like it was her only lifeline to reality. Clint rolled onto the bed beside her and smiled lightly, not touching her but holding on to the coat near her own hand.

“Clint,” she breathed, her voice slurred by the drugs but there was Natasha behind it.

“Yeah, it’s me Tash. You get some sleep now, I’ll take first watch.”

 

“God how can two of the most deadly people in the world look so…” Bruce trailed off; not quite knowing how to describe the image of the assassin duo snuggled up next to each other from outside the observation window of Natasha’s hospital room. The team had left to give the partners some time to themselves, it felt like too personal a moment to intrude on.

“Harmless?” Steve suggested, his face tilted to the side as he considered the situation.

“I don’t know. Young I guess,” the kind doctor shrugged, running a hand through his dark curls, “I mean they act a lot older than they are, is what I’m trying to say.”

There was quiet and then everyone turned to stare at Tony.

“What?!” he snapped, shuffling uncomfortably.

“You know don’t you?” Steve asked.

“Well yes but I didn’t,” he ran a hand down his face and sighed, “After Natasha was sent to scout me out and I knew who they were dealing with I hacked into SHIELD’s database. Seriously, I’m a little bit offended at how easy it was and anyway, I looked up her file and Barton’s was attached. They always come as a pair.”

“The Widow and her Hawk,” Thor said quietly.

Tony nodded, “The first dozen I found were basic stuff, mission outcomes, training scores, basic info” he paused and then almost hesitantly added, “They’re both twenty-four. Coulson picked Barton up off the streets when he was still a kid and then Clint took Natasha in when they were both twenty.”

“You are omitting details Man of Iron,” Thor furrowed his eyebrows and sure his deranged brother had called him stupid in fancier words but it was clear that nothing much got past the god.

“You got me big guy but you aren’t going to like it. I mean I was pretty sure the files I found were just decoys so I kind of kept looking,” Tony said guiltily, “Like, they should be completely insane after all the shit they’ve been through. Natasha was raised by some Soviet freaks who undid the screws in her head and put in bolts if you get what I mean. They had her since she was three years old or at least that’s what she thinks. And Clint, don’t even get me started, he actually grew up in the circus and then joined the military when he was fourteen or some fucked up shit like that and ended up living on the streets and as a gun for hire before Phil found him. The worst part is that after Manhattan, Fury sat me down and said he knew I was hacking files but it wouldn’t matter because Level 7s and up only have their full files on paper. As if half that shit wasn’t messed up enough there’s a whole load of crazy on top of that.”

“That’s,” Bruce tried, “Tony that’s screwed up. How do they even trust other people?”

“That’s what I asked Fury and he pretty much said they don’t except each other and Phil. Can’t really blame them, can we? All that shit and they’ve not even had their quarter-life crisis yet?”

The team looked in on the agents, the Russian curled up on her side and hanging onto Clint’s jacket but her face smooth and her body rose and fell steadily with her breathing. Clint seemed to be entwined with her without actually touching her. His strong calloused palm next to her deceptively delicate one, their torsos and legs aligned with the other. He was still awake, religiously guarding his partner just like he had promised. His eyes met those of his team on the other side of the window and he smiled wearily with a slight wave of his hand before settling further down next to Natasha.

“We should give them some privacy,” Pepper said quietly, turning away from the scene that was making her chest hurt a little bit, “It’s the least they deserve.”


	3. Clint Barton

Apparently Natasha and Clint really always do come as a double act because it was Clint’s turn next.

In hindsight, the agent who went around setting it up was really fucking smart about it.

 

They’d been called in for a briefing on a mission except Bruce had been asked to leave to do science stuff and Natasha had been requested elsewhere on base.

In all honesty that should have sent alarm bells off right away.

Agent Donald had called them all in and sat them around a screen before playing it. The footage was of young children, all at least under the age of ten, being brutally beaten, assaulted and experimented on.

Tony felt the air leave his lungs as he watched, his blood running cold and rage settling cold and hard in his belly. He now totally understood why Bruce was uninvited to this particular party, his broken childhood was hardly a hidden fact and anything that made Bruce upset would have the Hulk to deal with and, as much as Tony got along great with Mean n’ Green, he could completely see the point of him not destroying the Helicarrier all over again. And Natasha, the thought of her actually being one of those little kids, brainwashed and contorted at her master’s will made ice crawl over what was left of his heart.

Except Clint was shaking his head, suddenly on his feet and stumbling backwards, the pupils of his name-worthy eyes huge with only a ring of grey around it as he backed up into the wall. Somehow on the way retrieving his knife from a hiding place on his body, seriously, the guy carried as many concealed weapons as Romanoff. Tony highly suspected they had a small armoury between the both of them.

He really kind of wanted to slap himself in the face too. He should have known damn it, he had been the one to read Barton’s file and it had painted a less than idyllic childhood but surely SHIELD knew that better than everyone else except maybe Tasha or Phil. He looked over at the guy in charge of this show, and how the hell had he missed the smug look on his face as he witnessed the famed Hawkeye fall apart?

The rest of the team had already jumped into action as did Tony, after letting out a few choice curse words before paging Romanoff and hoping she hurried up and got here fast.

 

She burst in not two minutes later, not out of breath because she was too composed for that but there was a white glint of fear in her eyes as she took in her surroundings. Carefully noting the videos, Donald and her partner before steeling her face impassively. Tony ignored the voice in his head that helpfully supplied the choice words of survivors’ guilt when Tasha’s expression changed at the tape. She looked unfairly torn between tending to Clint or killing Agent Donald in the most painful way she knew how but her mind was made up in a split second and he wasn’t really that surprised. Barton would always be her first priority, but she did signal for Thor to guard the door. The thunder god had summoned Mjölnir and was grasping it while he folded his thick biceps in the best impression of a nightclub bouncer Tony had seen in a while.

Her eyes were slits as she glared at Donald, keeping her unrelenting gaze locked on him as she prowled across the control room with the stealth and power of a lioness. Donald was looking decidedly less smug and a lot more terrified. The Black Widow was a force to be reckoned and Tony was also pretty certain that if you didn’t want to tango with Widow, you didn’t touch her Hawk.

 

Natasha set apart the anger that was threatening to consume her, the lowness of someone to use someone’s personal background as a way to get back at them didn’t go unnoticed. The hatred was burning through her body, as red as her ledger and as lethal as her methods of torture but she pushed it all to the back of her mind, reassuring herself that she would get the chance to take apart Agent Donald in the most horrific way imaginable and if SHIELD wouldn’t let her then she would settle for a gun and ten minutes in the room with the bastard.

To be fair, the only thing that was stopping her from tearing him to shreds was the absolute look of terror on her partner’s face. He had pressed himself between the corner and filing cabinet, knees to his chest and was cowering, as if expecting to be hit. He clutched his trusted field knife; he had seriously had that thing for the entire time she’d known him and according to Coulson, even longer than that, in both hands. Past the point of defending himself and just waiting for the beating. Her heart tugged in odd places and a small part of her kind of wanted to cry for him. 

She balanced her weight on her heels and lowered down to his level. Clint looked tiny, like the little boy he had been when he’d first been given scars and know the true meaning of horror, his shoulders were hunched defensively and he was trying to shield his head behind his knees. Her chest done a spasm, a sort of clench-jerk of pressure before she embraced it, using it to her advantage. Not many people got the point of the Black Widow was not to be emotionless but to let the emotions you did feel to heighten and manipulate others. This wasn’t about that though, this was about Clint and she didn’t want anything other than the truth between the two of them.

She hated the way he was like this, hated the way he was blatantly a smaller target, a child. She knelt slowly, giving him plenty of time to recognise her actions and to defend himself if he felt he needed to. This was all about choice, giving him one now when he should have had one all those times with his father and brother and trainer and commanding officer. 

“Clint,” she said softly, moving at a snail’s pace closer to him, “You’re all right.”

His eyes were still bright with fear, still completely terrified as he shuffled further back into the corner, back pressing into the corner and shaking his head.

Her voice low, she said, “It’s okay. Look at me; you know who I am Clint. You know who you are.”

Clint shuddered and scrambled backwards rapidly when she placed a gentle hand on the side of his boot, just touching his laces. When he realised he had nowhere to go and his body was trapped in a small space he sank down again, arms braced over his head as he retreated further inwards. His limbs curled and he had discarded his knife along the way. 

Natasha heard background noises behind her but ignored them and they eventually quietened. Reaching out tentatively once more, she brushed a careful palm against his roughened boots, flinching when Barton did but not stopping. Shifting closer while murmuring soft Russian assurances and until she could place a delicate hold on his muscled bicep. He made to struggle but she tapped the outside of his boot reassuringly, the angle awkward from her position at his side, it was usually Coulson’s job, it was only then that she began to truly feel the tension bleeding from his body. He returned a little more, took note of his surroundings (the room had been vacated apparently, only the two of them in the small corner and no cameras or spectators) and buried his face into trembling palms as she soothed is back, dragging his head to the crook of her neck and feeling small tears brush onto her skin. 

Hours might have passed but he eventually stilled under her touch, freezing and re-grasping his blade. Natasha’s hands were on his in an instant, releasing his hold and quieting his fidgeting caused by the sudden rush of adrenaline.

“God Tash, the team. They saw, they-”

“No,” she said firmly, grasping his face and forcing him for the first time to meet her eyes, “They are our teammates, they understand. You have no need to be ashamed.”

“My triggers are a danger to everyone else,” he sputtered, head hanging in shame, “I’m compromised.”

She kissed him softly, tasting salt and sweat and just pure Clint, “Never.”

He shuddered again, a heaving laugh-sob and leant further against her as she stroked his hair. He made a guttural noise in the back of his throat and hummed while she did, sounding ridiculously like a purring cat. Exhaustion hanging around his body like a cloud he started to nod off before jerking himself abruptly awake but feeling Natasha’s hands on him, cool and sure and steady, relaxed.

“Sleep Barton,” his surname was oddly fond coming from her, “I’ll keep guard.”

 

A few hours later, after Clint had napped and successfully scurried off into his vents to avoid the team and after the incident had been reported to a furious Fury, the Avengers assembled, minus Clint and in a spare meeting room in SHIELD HQ.

“Natasha,” Steve watched as the ex-Russian instantly became alert, posture straight and eyes intent, “I think we deserve to know if this poses a danger to our team.”

The flame-haired assassin smiled in faux sweetness and Bruce swore he felt a shiver run up his spine at the sheer promise of blood to come after that smile. “There’s not much to tell Captain. You are all intelligent people; surely you can put two and two together.”

“Romanoff…” 

“No, I will not tell you!” She spat sharply, springing to her feet and slamming her hands on the table, “The things I know were told in confidence, in trust. I don’t plan on breaking that now.”

“If this happened in the field-”

“It wouldn’t because there’s no one hanging around plotting Clint’s demise when they’re supposed to be on his side!”

Her hair seemed to be crackling with electricity only possessed by Thor but Natasha was enraged and the rest of the Avengers were suddenly very, very glad they had never done anything to directly piss off her or her partner.

“If something like that did happen on the job,” she said quieter this time, voice soft and silky smooth, “I would dismember the individual responsible and get him back. Missions go to shit all the time but we always come home together, whether that means that one day we both end up coming back in boxes or not.”

Her teammates probably hadn’t realised how far she would go to drag her Hawk back from the brink of death and destruction but it was evidently clear now. She had done it umpteen times before. If she was anything less than a perfect actress she probably would have done something stupid and blushed at her revelation; at letting one of her most intimate cards be seen by her opponents but she once again had to remind herself that these people weren’t her enemy, they weren’t targets or even agents. They were her team and she should trust them.

She didn’t though, her trust issues ran so deep that she didn’t even trust herself and she only trusted two people in the entire world. One of them was dead and right now, she was saving the other one from following in tow. 

 

There was a grating noise and then a creak before Clint jumped out from the air duct with the grace and finesse of a feline, landing lightly and stalking straight to Tasha’s side. He couldn’t really look the team in the eye at the moment, embarrassment and gratitude swirling together oddly and he couldn’t stand the pitying looks once this was all over with.

“Here,” he stated roughly, flinging the bundle of papers in the direction of Rogers and Stark across the board room table, “My full file, medical exams, field reports, the works. The real one, not just the one Mr Billionaire over there snooped through. Just… don’t lose it alright, and let me know when I need to pack my things.”

“No one’s throwing you out Hawk boy,” Stark scowled before reconsidering and swiftly looked at Steve uncertainly, “We’re not throwing him out, right?”

“Of course not,” Steve assured them, fondling the papers gently in his large hands and seemed genuinely insulted at the accusation, “Thanks Clint, we really appreciate it.”

“Well don’t,” Barton snapped, “It’s just personal shit, all right? Don’t bring it up and I won’t and I’ll make sure it doesn’t affect me.”

Barton and Romanoff turned on their heels and stormed out of the board room.

 

“Well, that was a cluster fuck and a half,” Stark groaned into his hands, “I am getting Jarvis to watch my back like… well like Hawkeye for the next couple of days.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you everyone for the kudos and comments and follows and favourites and bookmarks, it really meant a lot to me :)


	4. Thor Odinson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not canon with Thor 2 which I still desperately need to go and see :L

As much as Bruce liked to deny it, he really was the team’s doctor. He insisted regularly that his title didn’t mean he was medically qualified but none of the others seemed to mind. Besides, he liked the feeling of helping patients; the Other Guy had destroyed so much in his life that he thought of it as a kind of penance, a way to pay back for the destruction caused at the overgrown hands of his alter ego, a debt is what a certain Russian assassin would call it.

It also helped that he was part of the team, knew what his members would tolerate, what would freak them out and what would damage them beyond recognition. They were all wary of medics to a certain extent and he couldn’t blame them; especially Clint and Natasha. After Tony and Steve had leafed through Barton’s file, both turning shades redder and paler as they read further on. Natasha’s SHIELD dossier had turned up the very next day. It was painfully clear to all that if one went the other would undoubtedly follow.

Tony had grimaced when handing him the information, patting him on the back sympathetically in a sort of _you have no idea what you’re letting yourself in for_ kind of way. Their live-in spies had obviously led no pampered lifestyle but seeing the strain so clearly displayed on the inner half of their bodies was an _excruciating_ ordeal and Bruce had locked himself in the Hulk-Out Room and it had taken every last inch of his self-control not to let the change happen. Seeing the pristine condition of Natasha’s body but the highly unusual brain activity and the deep groves scarring almost all of her bones and the remnants left behind on her organs hurt more when he thought of her as the person who brought the warm blanket after the Other Guy had come out to play, dusting off the remaining rubble where he had passed out, the person who liked to drink tea and spar with her partner when she was feeling down and the person who was perpetually terrified of medical equipment and for a very good reason.

Clint’s hit a little closer to home. The wear and tear of his joints showing long endurance even at his young age, his lack of body fat, the undisputed evidence of torture on his feet and hands, whipping scars deep into his muscled back and the long since healed spiral fractures in his wrist - the most common calling card of physical child abuse. Bruce knew that there was a story behind the fact that the two SHIELD agents had a defining dislike towards hospitals and now he completely understood. Natasha had mentioned only ever trusting Barton and Coulson, one had made a different call and the other had saved Barton when she couldn’t.

Usually they would patch each other up, their distaste for anyone invading their personal space was normally accompanied by death threats but they didn’t seem to mind when Bruce checked them over which he found surprising. He had asked Clint.

_Why do you let me treat you and Natasha, Clint? I’ve seen you with doctors and you’re nowhere near this compliant._

_Dunno doc, just trust you more I guess. ‘Sides you don’t smell chemically like in hospitals. ‘S nice._

Of course he had been half off his face with painkillers at the time and had soon fallen asleep next to the formidable Black Widow, looking a lot less formidable when she had her knees up at her chest and fast asleep on one of the Quin Jet’s cots, in under a minute.

Tony was another who didn’t like being treated as a patient, brushing it off with a sarcastic comment or avoiding it in general. Bruce knew it was a direct link as to how he got his arc reactor but his state of mind seemed fragile concerning that sort of thing so he respectfully didn’t push it. Sometimes when he was stitching Tony up he would tremble for a minute second and seem to struggle to get air into his lungs but would force his hands to stop shaking and clenching and grit his teeth and tough it out. He tried to be as careful as possible when stitching up Tony, consciously aware of how much pressure and how much skin-to-skin contact he had with the genius.

Steve and Thor rarely needed seen to, the super soldier and god with their advanced healing abilities meant that while they might be in pain for a couple of hours there would be no lasting after shock.

This was why, Bruce told himself, he was so taken back by Jarvis’s collected voice informing him that Thor needed medical assistance the sooner the better sir. Bruce was convinced Tony tinkered with his AI just to screw with them all.

The lights around the tower, Tony still insisted it was his but it was now permanently dubbed the Avengers Tower, were dimmed. Everyone sleeping off the exhaustion from their latest battle more than a little annoyed because really, what was the obsession every super villain had with genetically mutated animals. They had all been overly-tired and cranky before they had even got on the flight home and quickly dispersed after being dismissed from a hellish debriefing. Bruce had planned to have some tea, the kind that warmed you from the inside out, and collapsing bonelessly on the spacious sofa that occupied his living space on his private floor if he didn’t make it to his bed in time. After the Hulk came out to play it could leave him sore and feeling sleep-deprived for days.

He got on the nearest elevator and instructed Jarvis to let him off on the same floor as their thunder god, mentally going through all the things that could be wrong with him. Thor was hardy and healed but he did have scars, apparently Asgard’s royalty was expected to fight for their country too, not just sit on the throne and look pretty. Bruce was sure that was why everyone liked Thor; he had this air of a princely upbringing but also a warrior’s upbringing, quick to defend his friends, his _shield brothers_ if they were to come to any harm. He would make a just king back home, Bruce was sure of that.

The lift stopped on the communal floor and although the room was in semi-darkness Bruce could make out the massive bulk that was Thor standing next to the big table where the team usually ate.

“Thor,” he greeted cheerfully with a hint of concern seeping through, “Jarvis called me, are you alright?”

The blonde demi-god jumped, hand already half way into the practiced movement of calling Mjölnir before it jarred and dropped to his muscular side when he saw the doctor and instead sighed a world weary sigh.

“I am sorry friend Bruce, I confess I am not feeling completely well at the moment and apologise for my… restlessness.”

“It’s all right; let’s just get you patched up, okay? I’m sure we’ll all feel better after a good night’s sleep,” Bruce babbled as he approached the table which he could now see was covered in the general items found in a first aid kit. He made sure his voice was calm, reassuring. The worst thing was a panicked doctor when you were scared and alone and ill. It was normally the voice he reserved for his young fevered patients in back water towns that had never been treated in their life and where a simple sickness could mean death to many. Lately though, he’d used it when patching up his comrades, Natasha and Clint and Tony all being so scared of hospitals he felt like they had needed a reason to relax and it _had_ worked. Slowly lulling them into unclenching their overworked muscles and letting him touch them without being startled or their hands inching towards their concealed weapons.

The blonde nodded, head hanging heavily as he slumped into one of the chairs and shrugged off his loose long sleeved shirt on the way to reveal the nasty gash that ran deep into his skin and traced from one shoulder across the broad expanse of his back before it tucked behind an opposite rib. The surrounding skin was enflamed and angry and followed the track of the wound. Thor grimaced before rolling his shoulders, folding his arms on the table and laying his head down, exposing his back so that Bruce could clearly see the damage on his otherwise unmarred skin.

“Jeez Thor! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I did not find it pressing at the time, it was only now I realised the extent of the injury,” his princely voice muffled slightly by his bulging arms but still identifiably princely, “I did not want to trouble anyone either,” was said in a much smaller voice.

It was Bruce’s turn to sigh in exasperation and guilt this time. He’d thought he had made himself seem harmless enough that his friends wouldn’t fear to come to him for help or treatment. The fact that Thor had ignored the state of his injury for so long worried him, he didn’t actually know if gods could get infections but the chances were definitely increased if they had been lugging around in sweltering weighted armour all day.

“It’s all right Thor; you don’t have to come to me. We could go to the Helicarrier or a hospital, hell I’m sure Natasha or Clint would see to you if you’re uncomfortable,” Bruce blurted out, putting a safe distance between himself and the thunderer, as if to ease any anxiety.

“I apologise if I mislead you doctor, you have been nothing but patient and kind towards me,” Thor smiled reassuringly, momentarily glancing up from where he had buried his head in his arms, “I am merely unused to someone taking care of my battle scars other than my brother.”

Oh. _Oh._ Bruce kind of felt like an idiot now, it was so easy to forget that their loyal alien ally was related to the complete madman that had totalled New York. Loki had been completely unhinged when he attacked Manhattan and even though Thor had said that his brother was adopted, it was difficult to see any similarities in those moments at all. He’d been relieved when Thor had dragged his estranged sibling back to Asgard, chained and muzzled like a hound. He hadn’t really thought about what _Thor_ was feeling at the time, how it must have hurt to tighten his little brother’s shackles and to gag his notorious silver tongue and to return the wayward prince to face Asgardian and Chitaurian justice. Bruce didn’t know about siblings, he’d been an only child and had never, never wished his father’s abuse upon anyone but himself, but even him, with a ridiculous lack of a normal childhood, could see that the two princes had been exceptionally close at one point.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, “I didn’t really think of it that way. Is he… Is he better now?”

“What you must understand friend Bruce, is that when Loki was here last he was broken in both mind and body. The Chitauri had bound him to their will so he had no other option but to obey their demands.” Thor shuddered has he explained this, pressing himself further into the table and clenching his fists, “My brother was not as you had seen. As a child he was fond of his mischief but was kind. I do not know when his mischief became cruel trickery and when his kindness became deceit. He was… is a brilliant tactician upon the field of battle, if he truly meant to rule Midgard we would have been powerless to stop him.”

Bruce could totally understand that, Loki had been, for lack of a better word _sloppy_ in his ruling. If what Thor was saying was true it meant that Loki had been manipulating _everyone,_ and wasn’t that a scary thought?

“Well, that’s a bit intimidating really, isn’t it?” a forced laugh on Bruce’s half rose a chuckle from the pile of blonde muscle on the table, “Are you sure you don’t mind me fixing you up?”

“Do your worse Banner.” Thor really had been hanging out with Clint too much recently, that expression rolled far too easily of his noble tongue for Bruce’s liking but it did make a genuine smile cross his lined face.

The cut, as deep as it was, was blessedly clean and after gently dabbing away the excess blood it looked a lot less festering around the edges. Thor hadn’t stopped talking the whole time; Bruce thought it was to ground himself so didn’t mention it. He talked of grand tales of himself, the trickster and the warriors three, of him and Loki as children, his tone filled with an age-old heart ache that would take a lot more than a neat row of stitches and bandages to heal. There had been a couple of times when he had frozen completely under Bruce’s careful and steady hands, not struggling and not jumping just… stilling. It kind of freaked the doctor out a bit but he had dealt with Natasha trying to skewer him with a throwing knife when she was supposed to be unconscious so he figured he could deal with a little weird behaviour. It wasn’t like he was the pinnacle for normal either.

He also didn’t mention the fact that the only person Thor usually let near him to medicate his injuries was his brother and that he seemed to trust Bruce enough to fill this role. The god should have been wary and closed off at the betrayal of such a close friend but he had let Bruce and the rest of the team in, somehow able to look past the grief and despair unbelievably, find some hope again.

Bruce just wished he would be able to do the same if he was ever put in Thor’s position.


	5. Bruce Banner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for attempted suicide and Bruce having some generally really dark thoughts. Also there is a lot of violence or at least heavily referenced violence and child abuse.  
> I feel like this one kind of got away from me.

Father’s Day in the Avengers Tower turned out to be the most awkward and emotionally-exhausting holiday the superheroes ever had to face. Sure, they could go five rounds with extra-terrestrial beings and whatever megalomaniacal plan the super villain of the week had evilly concocted to rule the world but as soon as they had to deal with memories, _feelings_ ; they were instantly calling a rain-check and high tailing out of that situation as soon as possible.

In all fairness it was understandable; none of them had ever really had anything that resembled family, let alone a half-decent father. The closest one to a normal domestic life had been Steve and that had been seventy years ago. Any illusions of that had been shattered even back then as he was brought up by, _gasp_ , his single mom.

 

Natasha’s full file had been still decidedly sketchy on her upbringing before the Red Room but she had managed to terrorise them all when they were drinking one night, the red-headed assassin leisurely sipping vodka like it was water, and carefully recounted how she had lived happily with her family. Three big sisters and a mum and dad and all until she was four years old and her father had sold her to the government-run assassin program. Her first assignment, after the first round of brain-washing and _lessons_ \- that word was said in such a purposeful tone that it was pointless trying to dismiss the dark, contorted thoughts swimming around her teammates heads at what their spider could mean by that - was to kill her father. At this point, Natasha had gone quiet behind her glass, drawing her knees underneath herself and making herself look as small as she ever would. They had asked her if she had done it. She had given them a sad, melancholic half-smile. The kind of smile that said _I’m alive right now aren’t I_?

Once they had all retired to bed Tony, Steve, Bruce and Thor all tried to forget the idea of the little girl with red hair standing coldly in a pool of her father’s equally red blood as the life left his pitiful body. Clint just held and soothed Natasha as she shuddered through her worst nightmare.

 

Clint was worryingly casual about his family. The head-shrink at SHIELD said he was using deflection as _a coping technique for deep seated childhood trauma._ He hated the head-shrink. It was simple in to him, his dad was an asshole and his brother was a bag of dicks. It would have ended in a clusterfuck either way, or at least that was what he told himself.

_“How dare you?!” Hands, big hands, encircled his windpipe and pinned him by his throat against the wall. He gasped wildly, flailing as he tried to- needed to breathe and he couldn’t he couldn’t and- “Of course it was your fault! She wouldn’t have died if it wasn’t for you, you ungrateful little shit!”_

_People say it wasn’t my fault, how could it have been my fault?_

_"Sorry, - I’m sorry, didn’ mean to,” Clint struggled, his voice half slurred with the lack of oxygen. He slumped to the floor as the steel grip on is neck was relinquished and suddenly there wasn’t blurred edges at the edge of his vision and sweet air was filling his deprived lungs. A fist caught the side of his face and he was sent sprawling by the sheer force behind it. Scrambling on his stomach and trying to get his hands and feet under him, trying to get some sense of balance before he was flipped sideways by a kick delivered to his already bruised ribs, demanding him to reveal his delicate abdomen that was assaulted by a flurry of feet and elbows and knuckles. His lip was burst or maybe that was his nose and it was seeping into the cream carpet, staining the white crimson._

_Shame,_ he thought, _mom liked that carpet._

_When he woke hours or minutes later after his dad had finished laying into him he dragged his crumpled body off the bloody floor, swaying dangerously as he finally got upright. He hid in the linen cupboard that night, the sheets making as good makeshift bandages as he was going to get while he sobbed for his lost mother, absent brother, and grief-rage driven father._

_They had been starving for months, sharp hunger and dull emptiness filling their bellies. Clint felt as if someone had stuffed cotton wool into his head most of the time, his senses half muffled by the desperate need for food that sent him into dizzy spells frequently._

_Barney had come home to the squat they were staying in with an armful of food, a bag of brand new clothes and even a couple of the latest mobile phones. Clint should have been suspicious but he was nearly weeping with gratitude by the time the peanut-butter smothered bread hit his tongue as they gorged themselves on the first real food they had had since they’d been kicked out of the circus._

_Content to go to sleep on a full stomach for once, Clint curled up on the bare mattress, sighing happily before Barney yanked him to his feet and said he had to go with him. Blindly, naively, following his big brother, confused but wise enough not ask; he was led into a dark, stinking alley that ran next to their building._

_A gang of weathered thugs waited for them._

_Barney had condescendingly patted his shoulder, said something about needing the money. Clint couldn’t remember. Could only remember the overwhelming feeling of utter betrayal as he stared into his brother’s face and then his back walking away._

_Leaving Clint alone._

_The gang had forced him to his knees and thrown him around the alley and Clint had screamed and screamed and wished for someone to hear him, for someone for once in his god-forsaken shitty life to help him-_

_As he lay bleeding, broken and defeated and underneath the dumpster he had dragged himself to in the hope of shelter or some form of safety only to be dragged out again, bare back scraping against the concrete as they assaulted him over and over and over. Clint wished he would just die._

_He’d been taken to the police station and even though they had interrogated him for hours and he was covered in more dried blood and bruises that clear skin, he refused to give up his brother. He clutched with all his remaining strength to the idea that Barney would get him out of this his big brother would come and rescue him._

_Clint was in federal prison for a year and a half before Phil Coulson had been sent to recruit the boy who had taken the fall for Barney Barton’s crimes._

 

Tony admitted he had never gotten on with his dad, played it off as a joke even most of the time. (Bruce suspected that, despite what people thought about Tony Stark being a heartless asshole, he didn’t want to hurt Steve’s feelings.) He hardly ever mentioned Howard and avoided doing so at all costs, consciously evading anyone trying to press the issue.

“I had everything I could ever want as a kid,” he says.

_He doesn’t say how afraid he was at seven when his dad left him at the holiday home in Spain. His mom was away doing charity work and for three weeks he was left in that spacious, empty villa all alone. The horrible feeling of being forgotten and left behind never truly left him. It only made Tony more determined to be noticed, whatever it took and the consequences be damned._

“I wasn’t abused.” Tony says fiercely, protectively. The genius knows how many of the Avengers suffered at the hand of their parent or guardian and he very clearly draws the line where they deserve more sympathy, more empathy, just plain _more_ than he does.

_You were neglected though_ , Bruce thinks sorrowfully. _How many times were you left to fend for yourself, on your own in that big mansion with only your butler to look after you, if you were lucky? How many times did you go hungry or ill or hurt because Howard was too busy hunting down Captain America while your mom actually ran the company?_

 

They had all agreed that Odin was a shitty father but never in Thor’s presence. The Asgardian practically idolized his old man and none of the remaining Avengers had the heart to point out to him that _hey, for your dad being a mighty powerful ruler and Norse god, he’s got some pretty crap parenting skills._ Mostly it was the whole Loki shtick though, because wow, you raise your sons to believe that Frost Giants were bloodthirsty monsters and the scum of the world to only to forget telling your youngest son that, surprise, you’re a Jötun.

“That was a dick of a move to be honest,” Tony had said, “No wonder the guy’s head is a bag of cats.”

 

Understandably, the Avengers treated Father’s Day the way other people would treat _vomit, gore_ or _the plague._ As if the two words should only be uttered in the same sentence as _terminally ill_ or _autopsy._ If there was a group of people who had degrees and awards in avoidance of personal issues, it was them.

The Tower was ridiculously vacant the entire day. Usually the team revolved around one another, enjoying the presence of something that was akin to family members but it was different. Tony had holed up in his workshop in the bowels of the complex floors eighteen hours previously and it seemed like he wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon. Pepper was away on a press conference somewhere and everyone else was kind of a coward when it came to confronting Tony, especially when they were perfectly happy to wallow in their own grief for the time being although Steve had personally asked JARVIS to keep a close eye on everyone to which the AI had politely agreed.

Clint was most likely in a vent or a nest or somewhere equally weird and difficult to get to. Bruce had even taken to leaving suspiciously placed pillows and blankets around randomly in the hope that if the insomniac archer was going to hide from the rest of them, he would rest in between shifting his nest.

 

Bruce, admittedly, had planned to do science all day as a distraction in the hope that the memories wouldn’t creep up on him like the tide before it was too late to turn back. He’d been on one of his low spells although it had been lifting in the last few days. The grey fog beginning to fade away but now he was jittery and overly twitchy. By the seventh time he’d looked at the same sample he surrendered to the idea of not doing anything but spending the next twenty-four hours in a panicked haze.

He crawled into the cot in his lab. After all his time on the run, catching sleep wherever and whenever he could, he found it hard to have a bed sometimes. Too soft; _nights of cardboard covers and a starry ceiling._ Too vulnerable; _grabbing his meagre rucksack of belongings and pulling the cap to shadow his face._ Some habits you just couldn’t kick, he figured. The paranoid itch of being watched remained with him to this day but being in the Tower helped. The knowledge of Jarvis and the rest of the team looking out for him made a candle glow in his chest. He still felt like he had a million tiny needles pricking every square inch of his skin. He gritted his teeth as hard as he dared, the grinding of his jaw and the pain was grounding.

It kept him from that tiny house, his mom’s kind face weeping a blood red smile across her slender neck, his father’s deadly words and even deadlier fists. Curling his body into a tighter comma, knees to his chest as he shivered. Longing for the sticky heat of Calcutta or another humid country whose warmth would drive away the cold that reminded him far too vividly of that poorly heated home of his pitiful childhood.

When he eventually falls into a fitful sleep it is fraught with nightmares of that night. The cop cars on the sparse lawn and the anger that burned through his veins as he cried over his mom’s broken body. The deep-settled fear that he had always had the Hulk in him. Tony was wrong, the Hulk wasn’t created because he wanted to save Bruce: it was just because some part of Bruce was too stubborn or cowardly to die.

_The wind howled around him, as cold as the metal of the gun in his hand. Sinking to his knees, eyes blurring with tears and desperation. Shaking hand, shaking all over. Pale hands, green hands, monster hands. Be brave Bruce. Metal in his mouth, bitten between his teeth. His finger (human – I want to die human) on the trigger. I love you, Betty._

There’s a warm hand on his shoulder and he jerks awake with a start. He can feel his heart rate climbing and his carefully won control spiralling. Shoulders hunched, head pounding, breathing erratic and –

“Woah, easy there, big guy.” Tony. _Of course_ it would be Tony. His fellow self-proclaimed science-bro had an uncanny ability to find him at the most inconvenient times. Tony was pretty shitty at running a multi-billion dollar company but in the grand scheme of things, he was a good friend. Even if his timing could do with some work.

“Now-” he managed to wheeze, “Now is probably not the best time in the world. Please leave.”

“Not gonna leave you all on your lonesome, Brucie.” He had no hesitation in squeezing onto the cot beside Bruce and draping one of the crocheted blankets (Steve had a thing, okay, and then he got Clint and Tasha involved whom then recruited Thor into their shenanigans and now even the toaster had a shawl resembling a tea-cosy) over him.

He didn’t move his arm and Bruce tried to flinch, tried to scuttle away because he wasn’t safe. He was a dangerous, uncontrollable monster and the last thing he wanted to do was to hurt his team mate. To hurt _Tony_ who had called him a brother and given the misfits and him, the monster, a home after so long running through obscure third world countries in the name of redemption. Repaying a debt, as the Russians say.

Miraculously, his breathing steadied. His heart beat and pulse levelling out. He sagged a little, so exhausted with the strain that he could do nothing else but lean into Tony who was warm and was chasing the chill from his bones.

Tony was prattling along obnoxiously, because that was what Tony did. He didn’t like the silence and sometimes the only way for him to stop it was to fill it with his own voice. Bruce has a theory that because he didn’t get heard as a kid, Tony made sure to be the loudest voice in the room.

“You back with me now, big guy?” Tony asked, squeezing his arm and nudging his knee with one of his own. “What set you off? Is it just the day? Cause I totally get that. I think this is the first year I haven’t cracked open the scotch before noon-”

“Bit of everything,” he admits, smiling ruefully but feeling himself settle. He doesn’t say that it has been creeping up on him for a while, the darkness lapping closer and closer because Tony would worry and blame himself. The guy had a big enough guilt complex as it was, he didn’t need Bruce’s issues on top of everything else.

Tony frowned at that, dark eyebrows scowling and seemed to hold onto Bruce tighter if that were possible.

“I’m doing alright,” Bruce insisted. He knew he would be okay, “Can we do science now?”

Tony looked a bit suspicious or maybe like he wanted to say something more but didn’t quite know how to phrase it.

“Sure, we can go do science.”


	6. Steve Rogers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the slow updates but thank you for the lovely comments. There's not much team interaction in this chapter (warning its basically Steve whump) but I think I might do a part two for Steve or at the very least for Bucky.

The fight had been bad.  The intel was off and it was essentially a shit storm from the word go.  Steve was trying desperately hard to keep his team, his family, safe.  The whir of robots and flames of destruction were making it hard to get a visual and the comms were worryingly silent.  A streak of vibrant red, drawing the fire away from where he is pinned lets him know, reassures him, that Nat’s got his back.  Diving behind a car he took a few steadying breaths, frantically trying the lines of communication again and again. Frequency jammer then, or some sort of short-ranged blast powerful enough to fry them. 

There’s a mechanical noise, one that he usually associates with Tony’s suits and then there’s something whacking him across the back of his head.  The world spins desperately then tips on its axis.  And then again and again, beating him.

Even when he was small, scrawny, sickly, he could always find that place in his head when the pain got to be too much.  When the relentless surge of agony and the humiliation of being too weak to fight back became too much the world would slip away and Steve would hide in the sanctuary his mind created.  It took a lot to convince him to come back to reality.  Most of the time it was easier, _kinder_ , to stay somewhere where the hurt couldn’t reach him anymore.

 

_The apartment in Brooklyn offers no shelter against the harsh New York winter.  The Hudson had been encased in a thick layer of ice for weeks, the entire east side grid-locked.  Steve was curled up on the bed with his Ma, sweating violently and barely able to move without the nausea overwhelming and choking him.  Sarah Rogers ran a tender hand over his quaking shoulders as hacked up a lung._

_“Ma?” he questioned blearily, the word as raw as a razor blade on his enflamed throat, “Are you okay?”_

_“Just a little under the weather is all,” she reassured him tiredly._

_Her skin was hot and clammy on his own as she shifted closer to him.  The oppressive heat of another person was almost too much for Steve’s own fevered skin but Ma got so little time to rest as it was and if she was sick it didn’t bear thinking about._

_Hours or days later Steve woke to his Ma vomiting violently into a basin at the side of the bed.  Struggling to get himself vertical against the mound of blankets and pillows Bucky claimed to have_ ‘found’ _the last time he had come around, he crawled to her side.  Stroking her ashy blonde hair away from her face, he worried at the scorching temperature of her skin as she trembled._

_“Steve,” she rasped, eyes fever bright in her gaunt face, “You gotta get some sleep.”_

_“So do you,” he said, jutting his chin out stubbornly until she dragged herself back under the covers and all but collapsing._

_Later, so much later, after night chills and the heart-stopping bloody sick, Steve was going mad.  His Ma couldn’t get up at all, breath rattling alarmingly in her chest as she struggled for air and any weight she had had slipped off of her leaving her with jagged edges.  Steve could barely stand himself, still weak and unable to keep any food down.  Bucky appears between the delirium with a furrowed brow and spooning soup into the both of them and mopping their sweat-stained hairlines._

_Steve finds that place, where he is blessedly alone and his body is healthy and not fighting him every time he draws for breath and not aching from fatigue or scrapping with bullies.  He wonders if this is heaven, surely that is where he is.  It’s really the only explanation because his entire existence_ hurts _and he’s so ill for most of it and he can’t do anything because he’s so_ fragile _and no one ever seems to take him seriously, because who would?  He’s barely a hundred pounds soaking wet and what a waste because there’s so_ much _he wants do damnit._

_The next day dawns yellow against the white shroud surrounding the city.  Thick and icy fog creeping in and leeching every tendril of warmth from homes.  Steve’s apartment is quite.  There is no rasping breath of chesty cough, only silence and the sound of snowfall outside in a frozen Brooklyn._

_“Ma,” Steve croaked, “Please, Ma. Wake up.”_

_Her arms were still holding him from when he woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t stop shaking from the cold that had crept into his bones.  Tears leaked down his face in distress, frantically trying to wake her up, which only succeeded in sending him into a ferocious coughing fit that felt like it would never stop._

_Wheezing for air and body screaming in pain and sickness, he didn’t have any strength to resist it anymore.  He closed his eyes and wished he would just die already._

                                                                                                                            

“You are not giving up on us now Cap.”

It’s Natasha’s delicate hands on either sides of his face, Clint’s callouses applying pressure to his side that feels like it’s on fire, and there’s a hand grasping his, murmuring reverently in his ear and it sounds a lot like the dead love of his life and his best friend.  He can hear yelling and sirens and his body his in an agony that he has not felt in years.  He grits his teeth and manages to squeeze the hand clasping his and croak out some broken words before it goes dark.

 

“Buck,” Steve mumbled through a mouthful of blood, swollen eyelids cracking open to slits. 

The asset felt his stomach turn to lead.  No, Bucky – that was his name, wasn’t it?  That’s what the man on the bridge ( _Steve, his name his Steve, you’ve known him you’re whole life_ ) had said.  Not lead, dread.  Emotions were difficult.  The metal armed whirred threateningly. 

“Yeah, punk,” the words slid naturally off of his tongue, “It’s me.”

Steve let out a sigh of relief. “Was looking for you.”

“I know.”

Bucky reached out, he wanted to touch, to reassure.  Steve flinched, a whole body tensing as he shrank away.  The Soldier withdrew the metal arm like it was on fire.

Steve made a small sound of pain, of distress.  Bucky was instantly by his side, using his flesh hand to stroke his hair away from his face, Steve leaning into the touch.  He’s hit with a flash of a memory: of Steve lying so ill on another bed with a woman, older, his mother, so still and barely breathing.  He remembers that sick dread from then too, of utter panic and despair as he had ran right to him.  Apparently not much had changed since they were twelve. 

“You remember me?” Steve couldn’t hide the relief in his voice.

“Couldn’t forget ya,” Bucky’s voice was rusty, unused to being allowed to voice anything, “You were a sickly little thing with a heart as big as a lion’s.  No fear, completely invincible.”

Steve laughs and winces.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I finally have some time for this fic after exams and my first semester at Uni.  
> Also I wrote this chapter after listening to Hamilton on a loop for like, a week, and it gave me inspo for Steve and Sarah Rogers so that was cool.  
> "I was twelve when my mother died, she was holding me. We were sick and she was holding me, I couldn't seem to die."


End file.
